Will Warren's Subtle Tweak that Made Him One of Baseball's Best Pitchers

Will Warren made a change this year heading into Spring Training, and the results have been spectacular.

New York Yankees pitcher Will Warren (29) delivers a pitch during the fourth inning against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Will Warren is a different pitcher for the New York Yankees in 2026 than he was in 2025. Last year, he was hit-or-miss.

Warren had a propensity for blow-ups, with a few games getting out of hand for the young righty. Warren made nine starts in which he gave up four or more runs. An outing against the Blue Jays in July was his worst. He allowed eight earned runs.

New York Yankees pitcher Will Warren (98) wipes his forehead during the first inning in their MLB game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. | Kevin Sousa-Imagn Images

Despite how ugly it got for Warren, the positive, though, was that he made a start every five days. His 33 games started led all of baseball.

The Yankees stuck with him, and it seems he has rewarded their faith to the point that when Warren pitches, there should be a sense of calm to anybody walking up to the stadium that day. Warren has shown early on that he can be one of those old-school pitchers who can pitch deeper into a game.

After 6.1 innings of one-run ball against the Orioles, Warren lowered his ERA on the year to 2.39. He has been one of the league's best strikeout machines, on top of that. His 28.7% k rate is in the 84th percentile in baseball, according to Baseball Savant. It also helps that he has a 5.4 walk rate.

Will Warren's 2Ks in the 6th.

9Ks thru 6 pic.twitter.com/cFX7Vww3Zj

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 2, 2026

The change Warren made to get here

When Warren walked into camp with the Yankees before the season started, he did so with the intention of making one change. Since being drafted 243rd overall in 2021, he has been pitching from the first base side of the rubber.

This season, he went back to what he did in college: pitching from the third-base side. The results were immediate, too.

Will Warren altered his point by moving towards the third-base side of the mound, and here's how his Horizontal Approach Angle changed:

4-Seam: 2.0 -> 3.0
Sinker: 1.1 -> 2.0
Sweeper: 5.2 -> 5.8
Curveball: 3.7 -> 4.5
Changeup: 0.6 -> 1.7

Much sharper angles = more deception pic.twitter.com/HNiKtgbP0Q

— Ryan Garcia (@RyanGarciaESM) March 17, 2026

Warren ended up getting glowing reviews on this change from an unlikely source. That's Orioles manager Craig Albernaz, who watched his team get mowed down by the righty.

"[Warren] made an adjustment this year where he's all the way over on the third-base side, so he creates that angle, especially with that sweeper and then the sinker, too," Albernaz said, according to MLB.com's Bill Ladson. "It was a little bit tough for our guys to calibrate. They ended up calibrating, and he just did a good job of staying on the gas and the throttle and throwing a ton of strikes."

Top 10

Just as Rice is turning heads in baseball, Warren is, too. Though it seems the league is quietly realizing how good Warren can be. It's a different place than he was in the American League Division Series, where Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s grand slam against him became an iconic moment in Canadian sports history.

Right now, the Yankees have three pitchers in the top 10 of ERA. Two of them are homegrown. Cam Schlittler is second with a 1.51 ERA. Max Fried is eight with a 2.09 ERA. Then, Warren, of course, is 10th with his 2.39.